That was a crappy storyline. In fact I'm just going to say it...it was so crappy and went on for so long they killed Barry off because of it. That storyline derailed Barry's comic and it never recovered. DC can spin whatever nonsense for why they really killed Barry off during the Crisis but the real reason is that storyline sunk Barry's book and made the book unbearable.

It was awful I agree, but I would doubt It was the 'Trial' storyline that sealed Barry Allen's fate, the book hadn't been a good seller since the Silver-and-early-Bronze-Age, and the perrenial low sales and general reader apathy for the title was already well established by the time of Carmine Infantino's second coming... here was a book that had had the same writer in place for almost 15 years, and with a character as challenging to write for as The Flash the energy and inspiration could never be kept for even remotely that long.

Quote:

Cary Bates Speaks:
Q: If not for the advent of Crisis on Infinite Earths, what direction would you have taken the Flash title after the Trial story? Would the resolution have been much different than what was published, and if so, did you have stories completed that were discarded?

CB: Because DC had given me over a year’s advance notice of the Crisis and Flash’s inevitable demise, I was focusing all my energies on the Trial storyline, since it would now carry through until the very end of the book’s run. So in all honesty I never contemplated what Flash’s life might have been like after the verdict. But the far more interesting question is what might have been had there been no Crisis event? Well, for one thing the Trial would’ve probably ended a good 8 or 9 issues earlier. Flash would’ve been vindicated and found not guilty in the court of public opinion—but perhaps not by the court system. In fact, before the Crisis entered into things, I do remember toying with the idea of Flash being found guilty and going “on the run” (literally). This would’ve kicked off a new story arc which would have had Flash continuing to do his good deeds as a wanted man with an arrest warrant hanging over his head (sort of a variation on the Green Hornet concept of a hero who the authorities view as a criminal). What I liked most about this idea was the delicious irony of a Flash who ends up joining his own Rogues Gallery.

Politics, Power, and The Black Panther. A Commentary On Wakandan outlook and Monarchy, By Jeffrey Kahan.